Primary Sources

	Out of the star enshrouded night it fell,
	A battered derelict that space had maimed,
	Its hull a twisted wreck, its power tamed,
	And of its crew no living soul to tell.
	Space dry and thin the rigid mummy sits
	And marks a vigil only death may keep;
	What endless night, what weary age of sleep
	Has he kept sentinel? No lip admits.
	That was a golden age, that world carefree
	When men stood foursquare on the crust of Urth
	And threw their challenge to the stars; with mirth
	They swore to conquer all infinity.
	So armed with courage knowledge would deny
	Their fragile bulbs of steel wire launched to float
	Across the shallow solar gulfs, where bloat
	Strange moons and planets in a crowded sky.
	And then with knowledge astronautic gained,
	With fire atomic as a willing slave,
	Upon the silent God of Night they gave
	An offering of ships, and men ordained.
	Of men imbued with zeal the mystics know
	Who manned those mighty ether ships that fell
	Like pebbles dropping down an endless well
	Until they came to alien suns where glow
	The incandescent vapors multihued,
	Where toxic gasses burn with tourquoise light
	Or smash the space-time contin'um with white
	Heat from a hellish dwarf, where planets brood
	Like peering eyes that stare upon the doomed;
	And from those new worlds of the starlit seas,
	From island nebulae, from galaxies,
	From burned-out suns whose glory once illumed
	Weird destinies. Here cosmic engineers
	Set colonies along their orbit runs
	Till navies filled with commerce of the suns
	Bore fruit of conquest, for those pioneers
	On the high sea of interstellar space
	By trellised lace of orbit lines, and force
	That binds each star and planet to its course
	Had welded fast their empire. But the race
	Of humankind had changed as aeons passed.
	No longer was the man of Urth supreme,
	But cosmopolitan, had lost his dream,
	And though he stood where wealth of knowledge massed
	Had thrown his outposts to the chasmed lip
	That marks the lightless, ultimate abyss
	Beyond which shore no beacon sun may hiss
	Or sibilate in silence, yet the whip
	Of manly strength that was his heritage
	Sank deep and fallow, while his gnarled machines
	Were given to the task, and thoughtless means
	Of mindless android monsters who for gage
	To measure used no human eye that scans
	But walked in darkness shadowed by the length
	Of instruments prehensile to strength
	Of electronic solenoids, where spans
	The rippled muscles of a force that spoke
	The unleashed power of atomic might
	Stripped from the glowing nucleus, where bright
	And hot the whiplashed positrons are broke
	Against bedrock neutronium, but soft,
	Effeminate and poised the progeny
	Of space tanned mariners where dark debris
	Who bloated on the ebb tide, for aloft
	The tentacles that spread to integrate
	With calculus logistical the plan
	That was to be the Monument to Man;
	A universe of virile peace, a state
	Omnipotent of matter, held decay
	And back the tide rolled, back across the years
	Of light and peace, back down the trail of tears,
	For empire is not won within a day
	But must be purchased by the blood of those
	Who dream the Greater Dream, and who would die
	While searching in the archives of the sky
	For knowledge that was placed beneath the Rose
	So long ago, back to its place of birth
	It slowly ebbed, and then along the sands
	Of outpost planets it has washed, rough hands
	Colonial were set against the Urth
	And Chaos ruled. So came the Tongueless One
	To walk the empty spaceways, and to grin
	With his huge imbecility, at men
	Beat down into dust and, beaten, shun
	Their heritage. And now from Urth is seen,
	When with a slow, majestic sweep begun
	Each eventide at setting of the sun,
	The Wheel of Stars parading down the screen
	Zodiacal, the constellations lost,
	The solar systems, fertile worlds, and rocks,
	The frigid planets, and the flame swept locks
	Of guardian keeps on Mercury. The cost
	Was paid in treasuries of energy
	Extraneous, and toil and sweat and thought
	Of terrene life to barren planets brought,
	Ten billion New Worlds in immensity.
	And now the old Urth, like a jeweled hag,
	Her gemmed cities bright against the breast
	Of umbrial shadows draped across the West
	From shoulders of the senile hills that sag
	With weariness that ages slow erode,
	Has gathered her ephemerae to dwell
	In cities sealed and domed with crystal shell,
	Here sits the Elder Brethern, here they bode
	In vaulted halls to weigh the Cosmic Plan
	By symboled logos, and as worlds set free
	Launch each a space-borne fleet to destiny,
	They comprehend the All; this was our Pan!
	-- Grady L. McMurtry
	8/6/43 e.v.

Crowley Classics

Prayer: A Note

by Aleister Crowley

DRAMA

The RITE OF OURANOS

Conclusion

From the Outbasket

Home away from Home